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Barbary Coast


A waterfront area of San Francisco, California, in the years after the 1849 gold rush. It was notorious for its gambling dens, saloons, brothels, and disreputable boarding houses.

 

 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Barbary Coast

Mediterranean coastal region, North Africa. It extends from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. Once part of Roman Africa, the region was overrun by Vandals in the 5th century AD. Reconquered by the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) c. AD 533, it was overcome by Arabs during the 7th century and was eventually broken up into the independent Muslim polities known collectively as the Barbary states (Morocco, Algeria [Algiers], Tunisia [Tunis], and Libya [Tripoli]). For centuries the coast was notorious as a haven for pirates, who ravaged shipping and collected tribute from European states. After the U.S. war with Tripoli (see Tripolitan War), the U.S. expedition to Algiers (1815), and the bombardment of Algiers by the British (1816), the pirates ceased exacting tribute.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Barbary Coast
(bär'bərē) , waterfront area of San Francisco, Calif., in the years after the 1849 gold rush. Gamblers, gangsters, prostitutes, and confidence men flourished, and the brothels, saloons, and disreputable boardinghouses made the Barbary Coast—named after the pirate coast of North Africa—notorious throughout the world.

 
 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more

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